In this Christmas disc with a difference, the talented Canadian group, the Aradia Ensemble, warmly recorded, present the nine charming sets of simple variations Charpentier wrote on French Christmas carols, or Noëls. Standing out from the rest is the minor-key Ou nous dites Marie, with chromatic writing like Purcell’s. These instrumental pieces are set alongside a sequence of lively vocal motets on a Christmas theme, culminating in a miniature Nativity oratorio.

After nearly two hundred years of almost total neglect, the music of
Marc-Antoine Charpentier is now well established both on the concert stage and
in recordings. Relatively little, however, is known about his early life and
even his date of birth has been open to conjecture. His father was a copyist
and the gifted son obviously inherited his father's calligraphic skills, as can
be attested by the script of the 28 autograph volumes of his works.

Shortly after his eighteenth birthday Charpentier went to study in Rome,
spending three years as a pupil of the famous Italian composer Giacomo
Carissimi. Carissimi was distinguished for his Latin and Italian oratorios
which played an important part in Roman religious life, as the oratorios of
Charpentier were subsequently to do in Paris. Carissimi's reputation was
secured with his 1649 oratorio Jephte, and the style of this and other
works left its Italianate mark on Charpentier. In both composers we hear
flowing melodies, dramatic use of silence, and chromatic and descriptive
harmonies with harsh dissonances and expressive modulations.

Charpentier was a close contemporary of King Louis XIV (1638-1715). It
was in part because of illness on the day of official auditions for the post of
sous-maître for the Chapelle Royale in Versailles and in part because of
the overwhelming influence of Jean-Baptiste Lully at the court that Charpentier
received few royal commissions, although he was granted a generous pension by
the king as a consolation for his failure to gain an official court position.
It may, indeed, have been because of Lully's monopoly over the performance of
stage works that Charpentier turned to religious oratorios and the church for
employment. From the early 1680s until his death, he was, like his teacher
before him, employed by the Jesuits, establishing himself as one of the most
important composers of French sacred music.

Of the 34 Latin oratorios by Charpentier, the six celebrating Christmas
are the most modest. They have an equal balance of French and Italian
influence, with instrumental ritornelli, choruses (some called chansons
and resembling popular noëls) and recitative narrative by shepherds,
angels or evangelists. The texts are adaptations of the nativity account from
the Gospel of St Luke2:8-16.

Many French composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had a
particular fondness for setting traditional and popular Christmas carols, known
in French as Noëls. There are arrangements for organ by Gigault (1683),
Lebèque (1685) and Geoffroy (1690). In addition there is a famous orchestral
setting by Michel-Richard Delalande for the Chapelle Royale. The liturgy of the
Christmas Midnight Mass had long allowed the singing of these popular carols,
but whereas they had often been incorporated into vocal compositions in the
sixteenth century, by the time of Charpentier instrumental arrangements were
the norm.

Charpentier's noëls are to be found in two groups which seem to
have been written in conjunction with the oratorio-like In nativitatem
Domini canticum. They are very dance-like in format: Joseph est bien
marié and Une jeune pucelle are bourrées, Où s'en vont ces gais
bergers? and A la venue de Noël are gavottes, while Vous
qui désirez sans fin resembles a minuet. Altogether there are nine noëls
in Charpentier's collection.

The first of the motets here included, In nativitatem Domini canticum
(H.314), has been dated to the early 1670s and was perhaps written for
performance at the house of Mlle de Guise. A motet of this kind could be used
during a Mass for the season or after the office of Vespers or Compline. The
text Quem vidistis pastores is derived from a trope, an addition
to the liturgy that formed the basis of early liturgical Christmas plays.

Canticum in nativitatem Domini, H.393,has been dated to the same
period. The instrumental introduction is followed by an alto solo based on the
opening text, Frigidae noctis umbra, accompanied by basso continuo.

A soprano takes up the message of the angel,
telling the shepherds not to be afraid, after which a three-part chorus of
shepherds urges immediate presence in Bethlehem. A pause marks the period of
their going, followed by three verses for the three-part ensemble, addressed to
the Holy Child and to the Virgin. In nativitatem Domini canticum, H.416,
conjecturally dated to the later 1680s, includes a chanson, Pastore,
undique.

The final motet In
nativitatem DNJC, H.414, uses a text that is largely similar to that of
H.314, and has been dated to the period between 1683 and 1685. It was written
for the singers employed by Mlle de Guise and is a more elaborate work, a
miniature oratorio. It starts with a Preludium, after which the
narrator, a solo soprano, identified in Charpentier's manuscript as Mlle
Isabelle, Elisabeth Thorin, a maid of the chamber to Mlle de Guise, starts the
Christmas story, joined by a second soprano, Marie Guillebault de Grandmaison.
A solo soprano, in the manuscript Jacqueline-Geneviève de Brion, a maid of the
chamber, is entrusted with the words of the angel, followed by a six-part
chorus of shepherds, urging each other to hurry, the top soprano line now
shared between Mlle Isabelle and Antoinette. Talon. A March represents
the journey across the fields to Bethlehem. A solo baritone, identified simply
as Joly, a musician who left the service of Mlle de Guise in 1685, takes up the
biblical narrative, before a solo soprano, Antoinette Talon, sings the simple Air,
a song in the tradition of the French noël. A three-verse final
chorus, for five parts, includes a recurrent ritornello. Here the upper
part is allocated in the manuscript to Brion, Talon and Isabelle and the second
line to Grandmaison.

Aradia has added to
this collection by adapting music from the Agnus Dei of the Messe de
Minuit, a work that makes use of popular noëls. This is based on the
noël A minuit fut fait un réveil. The ensemble has also, in some
instances, added the original words to the noëls, notably Laissez
paistre vos bêtes and Une jeune pucelle. In the spirit of their
dance qualities Aradia have also added percussion. In the Messe de Minuit Charpentier
twice directs the organist to play arrangements of noels. With this in
mind the ensemble have added arrangements of our own, based on those by Jean François
Dandrieu (1682-1738).

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